1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a mass spectrometer incorporating an ion source, acceleration means able to impart to the ions an energy essentially dependent on their electric charge, means for establishing in a sector a magnetic field orthogonal to the plane of the trajectory of the ions in order to inwardly curve said trajectory as well as means for detecting the ions.
2. Description of the prior art
In order to carry out a precise measurement of the isotopic abundance ratios, it is possible to carry out a mass scan, which makes it possible to frequently pass from one isotope to the other or from one element to the other, if it is wished to obtain the precise value of a ratio. Such a mass scan would be superfluous if the spectrometer was provided with multiple outputs permitting the simultaneous connection of several ionic species on separate detectors. However, such multiple output spectrometers are generally designed for special applications, so that it is often far from easy, or even impossible, without structural transformations to change the nature of several initially provided elements. In addition, such multiple output spectrometers are expensive. Therefore, mass scanning is the most widely used solution and makes it possible to work at different times on different mass isotopes, with a sufficiently fast time scanning to attenuate the drift or migration of the ion source.